Local Marketing Online: Part 3: Google Places

Posted on April 28, 2011

In Part 2: Web & Map Listings, I explained in detail the importance of claiming and managing your web and map listings. Well, Google Places is chief among those listings that you need to claim or ‘verify’ if you expect to enhance your local marketing search results.

For those of you who still may not know what it is, Google Places for Business is a free service that allows business owners to update and manage their physical business location information. Updating and managing this information ensures that it will post accurately to correlated services such as Google Maps as well as associated Google properties and search and Display Network sites that make up Google’s vast advertising network. If a general search in Google’s engine is either location-specific or made using a mobile device platform like iPhone or Android, local results are displayed along with the other results.

For the same reasons you ask site visitors to complete an online form so that you get the information about them that you need, your Google Places page, which is really a mini website, acts as a verification tool for Google (hence Google’s request to ‘verify’ your information) to ensure your company is being indexed the right way. Google will aggregate listing information it finds on other listing sites about your company to see if the content – profile description, local phone numbers, and addresses in particular – matches up. If it does not, it could hurt your chances to list prominently in the search results for the terms corresponding to your listing.

All of the preparation work I mentioned in Part 2 of this series is used to develop your Google Places page as well. Google, as well as Bing and Yahoo, are looking for consistency across the web. As I have stated previously, you are trying to establish your authority for the search terms that correspond to what you offer. So you must ensure your Google Places page includes as much of your optimized company information as can be added, including images and video if you have them. Because Google indexes these items, they could also appear in a relevant search result below your local listing information.

In order to get the most mileage out of your Google Places page remember to encourage your happy customers to leave reviews. Customer comments and reviews are published and heavily factored in search engine results ranking. Double lucky for you if you happen to be a local business that is also using Google CheckOut for online orders. If customers are giving you 4 or 5 star ratings on Google CheckOut as well as positive comments on Google Places you are greatly strengthening your chances for organic top ranking and lead generating.

The last item I want to mention is paid advertising. Surely you are all familiar with AdWords – Google’s pay per click search engine advertising program that displays your relevant ads in Google Search, Google Maps and across Google’s vast Display Network based on competitive bidding and the number of clicks your ads receive. Well Google has introduced a similar program called Boost. Google Boost is a form of pay per click search engine marketing that delivers an enhanced version of your Places listing in relevant Sponsored listing results on Google search and Google Maps (including Mobile). The ad content includes:

Name of your business
Address and phone number of your business as specified in your Google Places account
Short description of your business (Google will automatically generate an editable description based on your Google Places listing description)
Snippet from the Place Page detailing the average star rating and the number of reviews
Link to your business’ Place Page

I have helped many clients verify and develop optimized content for their Google Places page that has worked to achieve better rankings for local search. If you haven’t done so yet, verify your Google Places page. Remember to be consistent. Stick to your optimization plan!

In Part 4 of the Local Marketing Online series I will explain the inter-relationship between Search and Social Media and how you can improve your rankings by building and managing your authority score for the search terms corresponding to what you offer.

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Local Marketing Online: Part 1: Intro

Posted on April 26, 2011

Local marketing has become one of the most powerful ways to reach and convert customers online. With more than 2.5 billion local searches a month on Google alone, Google has taken notice of this fact and recently initiated a direct marketing campaign in targeted regions throughout the US to promote its local marketing opportunities. The company sent, by FEDEX, to select businesses a white box containing brochures and offers about the benefits of Google Places and the company’s online advertising programs.

Google is smart. They’re taking advantage of the trend and so should you. Why? Because local searches are easier and less costly to convert as prospects are typically further along in the buying cycle. The key is making sure:

You can be easily found by your targeted audience groups
They can trust you because others have said so
You deliver the right message at the right time
They can easily contact you or visit your location
You’re easily identified online as an ‘authority’ for what you offer
You follow up in an appropriate manner with the appropriate communications
You deliver on what you promise, and maybe a little extra!

In this eight part series I will explain the multiple facets of local marketing online and how its various components are now cross-referenced by the search engines to determine an ‘authority score’ which affects web page rankings. This multi-part series will cover:

Web & Map Listings
Google Places
Search & Social Media
City Sites, Reviews & Recommendations
Share Your Content
Email Marketing
Pay Per Click Integration
Mobile Marketing
Optimized Web Design
Tracking & Reporting

Look for Part 2: Web & Map Listings, where you will learn about Google Places, web directories, maps, and the importance of claiming your online listings.

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Local Marketing Benefits of Google Instant on Places

Posted on April 6, 2011

Recently Google announced the addition of Google Instant on Google Places. Google Instant is identified as a ‘search-as-you-type’ feature that delivers results automatically as you type, with no need to hit ‘Enter’ or click the ‘search’ button. As soon as you see what you need predicted in gray text you can stop typing and your search results will be listed below. The purpose of this search feature is to produce relevant search results in faster time. By understanding how the tool works and its goals, business owners can develop a local search engine optimization strategy that takes advantage of the types of search results offered to users.

To access the Places View local search tool, users simply click “Places” in the left-hand panel of Google. Once there, their searches will have place and map results that update as described above (i.e. search-as-you-type). All results are clustered around the location specified, such as New York City. A red pin identifies the location of each business on a map, and is accompanied by relevant information and links from across the web. And results now include 30 or 40 relevant links per page as opposed to the former 10. With all this information conveniently grouped, it is much easier for users to make comparisons as they search.

With this new local search feature, website owners will benefit greatly from a comprehensive local search engine optimization strategy that connects their on-site content with content they present on social media sites, review site, news sites, and other third-party websites. A few things to consider:

Keywords & Phrases: Strategically use your carefully researched and selected keywords and phrases for each type of highly focused content you represent so that more local search results are available. This also helps to develop your online ‘authority score.’
Online Reviews: Provide your customers with links to the various review sites where you are listed and encourage them to share their experiences working with your company.
Press Releases: Compose and post over the wire press releases optimized for the local search terms in your campaign.

The key to benefiting from the local marketing opportunities offered is to look at Google Instant on Places to understanding how it works and what it is trying to achieve. Then do all the things you need to do to help Google fulfill its objective to offer its users a larger selection of qualified, relevant local search results in a faster amount of time. When developing your local optimization strategy, to get the best results take into consideration all of your content, both on-site and off-site, so that you align your efforts across all your indexable local content collateral.

Google Places: Personalization for Local Search

Posted on March 27, 2011

Over the past few months Google announced the addition of several new local and mobile search tools for Google Places that make it easier for users to find local businesses by personalizing their search results. Offering great opportunities for businesses, these features provide tools to customize their Google Places listings to attract their targeted local customers.

The most recent addition is ‘Open Now,’ which allows users to click the link to reveal only the establishments in their vicinity that are open at the hour they are searching. For businesses typically desired outside of the usual 8am to 6pm business hours, such as pizzerias, gas stations, and pharmacies, for example, this feature is particularly helpful. What the new Open Now feature really represents is the move toward making local search personal.

In addition to Open Now, Google Places also allows users to filter local search results by star ratings, a type of online review that indicates how others feel about a particular business, and by distance, indicating how far they are willing to travel to visit the type of business they are searching for. A mobile app already available on Android phones, Hotpot is the latest iPhone app from Google that allows iPhone users to rate a place using their phone to help them remember their experience for future reference.

The point to understand is the general direction local search is moving. The experience for users has to be personal. People want to be able to manage their online experience by specifying items that help to narrow and manage search results.

Get started ASAP in 3 simple steps:

The first thing all business owners need to do is claim their Google Places account.
Next you need understand what is important to your target audience groups as they search.
And lastly, apply what you know about your customers as you use the Google Places tools to provide the right information to attract them.

Don’t underestimate how powerful Local Search has become to-date, or how important it will be to your businesses in the future.

Preparing for the Future of Google Search

Posted on September 14, 2010

In its never-ending quest to provide value to its end-users, Google is always looking for new and improved ways to evaluate relevance. Much has been said about the importance of website content, usability and backlinking. Where will Google turn its attentions to next and how could your search engine optimization initiatives prepare you for that new direction?

Google has resolved the issue of relevance by supplementing it to a degree with what is referred to as “popularity,” but what could also be called ‘authority.’

The great importance Google has placed on quality inbound links, its foray into social networking, and the changes it has made to the newly named local business search tool Google Places, provide insight into the direction the search engine is likely to take in the near future.

In a nutshell, it could be described in the phrase “power to the people.” Using online reviews acquired from various social media and online marketing and advertising sites where consumers are able to post them, such as Google Places, Google may add an element to it ranking algorithm that factors in such reviews. This seems to me like the logical next step. Establishing your website’s authority ( and reputation) in the eyes of the buying public through online reviews and publications needs to be a consideration in organic SEO planning.

The first order of business, especially if you have a “local” brick & Mortar, is to set up a Google Places account and encourage every single one of your customers to submit a review to establish your rating score. Next, use your social media accounts to engage customers in a conversation about your company and what you offer. Open a YouTube channel (yes, Google owns them too) and start placing fun and informative videos there that encourage users to rate them. Pitch a story to an online journalist and try to get them to write about you.

The point is to get others to start talking about you and rating you in a public forum. Consider it a new form of off-page search engine optimization designed to support other off-site and on-site initiatives that increase your popularity and authority in the eyes of Google. By quantifying consumer experiences in this way, Google is able to enhance user satisfaction by delivering relevant results based on input from its users.

I’m really interested in the new directions search is taking. It has made me think hard about how to approach search engine optimization so that given the ever-changing environment there is long-term value that can be counted on, providing on-going return-on-investment and the ability to build on a well-established foundation.